This is a special album, the likes of which you won’t get to experience many times in a cloistered, Western musical experience.

A little bit of backstory: BélaFleck, everyone’s favorite (or least favorite, depending on your tastes and outlook) virtuoso instrumentalist takes a bit of a soul-searching journey. Fleck undertook Throw Down Your Heart, a project to create a movie about his travels and explorations through Africa, searching out the origins of his musical love: the banjo, and making some great music along the way. It is perhaps a little known fact that the banjo’s origins lay in Earth’s oldest inhabited territory, rather than in its more commonly known trappings as a staple of Appalachian and rural American music.

Fleck’s experience turned out to be richly rewarding both personally and professionally. It allowed Fleck a chance to forge a more lasting connection with his younger half-brother Sascha Paladino (the director), and truly understand the nature of the banjo: that its sound and power derives from, and is reflective of, the experiences of its creators, African slaves. The trip also yielded this fantastic album, a joyous slice of Africa courtesy of Fleck’s musical passion.

Perhaps the biggest accomplishment for this album, and the most important to Fleck’s soujourn, is that it achieves the proper balance between musicians from the many countries Fleck visits (The Gambia, Mali, Uganda, South Africa, Madagascar), and Fleck’s own not-so-inconsiderable talents. With any virtuoso player, there is always the risk of their playing overshadowing all other pieces of an album. Wisely, the focus is kept squarely on the African musicians, while Fleck does what any respecting musician would do: he blends in, enhancing the compositions of his newfound collaborators. This effortless blending of musical language is precisely what makes this album so telling and so wondrous. Here, there is no cliche in treating music as universal language, it is clearly fact. Each composition is refreshingly original and often deeply intimate.

Fleck had already begun writing title track “Throw Down Your Heart” before he had set foot on the ancient continent. The phrase comes from the translation of the town named Bagamoyo, a Tanzanian town that lies on the eastern coast of Africa, where slaves were shipped in potentially greater number to the east than the west for sale in the Middle East. When slaves were brought to the shore here, looking over the Indian Ocean, it is said they realized they would never see their homes again. So they “threw down their hearts.” Listening to the track, you can hear in the proud yet forlorn sounds that Fleck already understood much of the cultural context and distress behind his instrument and its rich sound, and you suspect he’ll have no problem fitting right in with everyone he meets.

Fleck handily connects with another guitarist (Madagascan D’Gary), their dueling strings pirouetting like Kirov dancers on “Kinetsa.” Together with an all-star cast on “D’Gary Jam,” they create an enthralling Afro-jazz stew, managing to house a stunning diversity of regional sounds and styles in one seamless track that feels atmospheric, at times approaching ethereality. The jam also happens to feature the force of nature that is Toumani Diabaté’s kora. ”Angelina” sounds like pure, unadulterated celebration, like an entire village in Mali (or at least the co-credited Luo Cultural Association) threw Fleck a welcoming party that culminated in a giant, exhausting jam session. ”Ajula / Mbambia” comes closest to Fleck’s mission statement as he plays in The Gambia with the Jatta family who specialize in the ancestral banjo, the akonting.

Standing back from the whole, you hear a clear difference between the Malinese compositions from everything else. The diverse and progressive nature of the music encompassing both traditional and modern elements (“Mariam,” “Ah Ndiya”), the cross-cultural superstars of the highly-developed music scene like Diabaté and Oumou Sangaré (a prominent voice in the Wassoulou genre that gained traction in early 90′s Mali). ”Djorolen” is jaw-droppingly gorgeous with Sangaré’s intimate vocals duetting perfectly with Fleck’s delicate picking, and possibly the standout track on the record.

There is such a vast range of styles and sounds on display here that I’m positive everyone can find something to love. Not only is this Fleck’s most listenable release, but perhaps the best, and certainly the most ambitious (and one of my favorites of the year).

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